JIA 72 (1946) 0481

481

AN APPLICATION OF THE POISSON DISTRIBUTION

BY R. D. CLARKE, F.I.A.
of the PrudentialAssuranceCompany,Ltd.

READERS of Lidstone’s Notes on the Poisson frequency distribution (J.I.A.

Vol. LXXI, p. 284) may be interested in an application of this distribution which
I recently had occasion to make in the course of a practical investigation.
During the flying-bomb attack on London, frequent assertions were made
that the points of impact of the bombs tended to be grouped in clusters. It was
accordingly decided to apply a statistical test to discover whether any support
could be found for this allegation.
An area was selected comprising 144 square kilometres of south London
over which the basic probability function of the distribution was very nearly
constant, i.e. the theoretical mean density was not subject to material variation
anywhere within the area examined. The selected area was divided into 576
squares of ¼ square kilometre each, and a count was made of the numbers of
squares containing 0, 1, 2, 3, . . . , etc. flying bombs. Over the period considered
the total number of bombs within the area involved was 537. The expected
numbers of squares corresponding to the actual numbers yielded by the count
were then calculated from the Poisson formula :

where N=576 and m=537/576.

The result provided a very neat example of conformity to the Poisson law
and might afford material to future writers of statistical text-books.
The actual results were as follows:

No. of flyingbombs Expected no. of squares Actual no. of

per square (Poisson) squares
0 226.74 229
1 211.39 211
2 98.54 93
3 30.62 35
4 7.14 7
5 and over 1.57 1
576.00 576

The occurrence of clustering would have been reflected in the above table
by an excess number of squares containing either a high number of flying
bombs or none at all, with a deficiency in the intermediate classes. The close-
ness of fit which in fact appears lends no support to the clustering hypothesis.
Applying the x2test to the comparison of actual with expected figures, we
obtain x2 = 1.17. There are 4 degrees of freedom, and the probability of ob-
taining this or a higher value of x2is .88.

AJ 32